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OMG! What Are They Doing!

The other morning I rose unusually early to attend an Active Mediation on the beach.

The Guru who created this form of Active Mediation wasn’t present, maybe he doesn’t like getting up before sunrise… Instead one of his followers was leading the meditation, I say leading she very briefly explained what we were going to do before starting.

It started with movement, something I was expecting from an ‘active meditation’, simply jumping up and down… but then it took and unexpected turn...

The wailing phase started!

Screaming, moaning, sobbing “getting it all out”. My mind turned to the beach hut not more than a few meters away and wondered how they liked being woken up each morning at 6am to the harrowing sounds of hollering and howling that were going on… sobbing and cry’s of anguish!

A couple of years earlier we stayed in a similar location with beach huts and meditation workshops. There we were woken by the Tantra group practicing. Maybe 50 or 60 people in a large hut next to ours all making very loud ‘sex’ noises… all doing it in time. Certainly a less harrowing sound to wake up to than the screaming… in fact one that made me smile.

At this ‘Active Meditation’ I found myself participating in the people around me weren’t smiling. They were screaming and making sounds like they were in the most terrible pain… why? They are “letting go”.

Now if you let go of something, it’s gone!

In a guided meditation you may release something… let go of an old issue… watch it float off downstream etc. The point is you let go of it and its gone.

This active meditation, I was told, will have a profound effect if I did it for the next 21 days in a row. Despite the fact that the venue owner (one of the people extolling the benefits of doing this for 21 days) himself hadn’t done it!

If you practice anything you get better at it. Spending 20 minutes a day practicing being really upset and angry and you are going to get good at what you are practicing doing, good at being upset and angry.

Practicing Relaxing Meditation for 20 minutes a day and you are going to get better at meditating. Some of the benefits of Meditating are that you become more relaxed, clarity of mind, you know the kind of things…

Practicing ‘the darker side’, anger, aggression all coming out… remembering what has upset and angered you and letting it out as a scream, wail, etc… Thinking of the things that have gone wrong in your life… the ‘people who have wronged you’.

Getting deliberately upset is going to make you better at being frustrated, annoyed etc. Good?!!

Anything you practice you get good at. Of course you don’t want to ‘bottle things up’ you need to unblock the bottle neck and release them.

And when you release it and let it go, it’s gone… No more revisiting ‘it’ because you have released it, so if you find yourself revisiting it simply release it again. Then the real trick is to fill the space… once you release a negative block, think about something positive that you want, that now opens up for you…

You may not be happy with something that has happened and rather it hadn’t happened… and the good thing is it’s over and getting further away and you can start to notice the ‘silver (or Golden) lining’.

If you notice you’re having a thought that doesn’t support you let it go, banish it, get rid of it… and one of the best ways to get rid of patterns of behaviour that are not serving you, like this, is by using a technique called the ‘Swish Pattern’ created by Dr Richard Bandler (the original co-creator of NLP).

This thought experiment, psychological process, and mind changer works like magic.

The methodologies from Neuro-Linguistic Programming allow for some of the most effective techniques for change. A mental technology based on the structure of thinking.

Once the issue has been effectively dealt with and the issue is over it’s time to replace it with something better…

If you dig a hole in the sand by the seashore the tide will come and fill that hole in again. When you remove a pattern of behaviour you have a ‘hole’ and that space will get filled again with a new habit or by the old habit again… the difference is unlike the tide you have a conscious, thinking mind! You get to choose what fills that space.

A classic example is the person who gives up smoking (an oral habit), they then tend to end up putting more foods in their mouth instead and gain weight (another oral habit!). One habit has been replace by another one… but not consciously!

Replacing smoking cigarettes with 10 press ups or 10 stomach crunches is going to have much more positive effect.

Mentally having a different ‘thought’ and experiencing different feelings when you have just removed a negative thought or behavior will fill that space. You are associating a new feeling with the thought*.

*The Free Your Mind System runs through these exercises in a ‘done for you’ format… basically you listen and do it along with me… like anything, you succeed more when you are being coached.

Associating a New Good Feeling with that thought of you changing a habit, imagining how good it will be to succeed and feeling those good feelings…

Imagining a time in the future, one that you know is going to happen soon (maybe when that habit will be put to the test – like the smoker craving a cigarette after drinks) and imagine how you will act and feel differently (practice it before the event) and its wonderful… and it’s effortless, imagine doing your new behaviour instead and the good feelings coming over your body.

Planning in advance to be different is the same as a martial artist planning in advance how to block and counter a strike. S/he has rehearsed it so many times in advance before hand that in the competition the moves happen automatically… and the same is true of other things.

If you plan in advance to be calm when you walk in the room to find one of your children with an open can of paint, half of it on the new carpet sticking their hands in it and in their mouth, then when you see that situation you will be calmer.

Of course that example is a rather extreme example of a big mess that you might find a 2 year old in and you probably wouldn’t plan to be calmer because you wouldn’t imagine that scenario! But there are things that you know the kids are just going to do. They ‘play you up’, they get into mischief and there are many examples of this that you have seen before and you know you will have to deal with again. It is these situations that you can plan in advance to be calmer in… and one way you can do that is with The Swish Pattern.

Just as the basketball players get better results from mentally rehearsing success, and the martial artist rehearses counter moves that become automatic reactions, you can also deliberately plan the habit you desire.

Einstein would have called using these kind of techniques ‘a thought experiment’ to plan to be less stressed in a situation. To be calmer where you would have previously overreacted, to be indifferent where you might have been angry… you get to choose your behaviour. You get to choose who you are! Who you become.

The extreme example of finding your 2 year old eating and rolling in paint maybe isn’t something you are going to plan in advance to be more relaxed when you see… but thats ok because the mind generalises and still trigger the new behaviours. This is the reason I always recommend doing three different Swish Patterns on three similar situations so that the patterning starts to generalise…

You are different. You are more in control… you are changing and becoming better all the time because of changing old habits that didn’t work for you into new ways of enjoying your experience here on planet earth.

There are two types of pictures. The picture you make in your minds eye and the pictures that enter in through your eyes and are projected onto your visual cortex.

The ones you make in your mind are made up by you… you are the artist. The images that come in through your eyes are made by other people and the world around you.

Making images in your minds eye about how something will be in the future is something we all do, its called goal setting, but if it differs from the image that actually comes into through your eyes you need to be flexible and lucid of thought… not being flexible and is the reason that some people allow themselves to become stressed or get angry and annoyed, because the image didn’t match.

Routine things like getting up, breakfasting, driving to work, etc, are sequences of visual images that you may not be aware of. There is a ‘plan’ in your mind of getting up, eating breakfast and driving to work, and because it’s the same plan each day the images are buried deep and not in your conscious mind. So when the image of a flat tyre from the outside world comes in and doesn’t match the ‘plan’ in your minds eye its time to change the image in your minds eye rather than getting upset by what is actually happening because it isn’t what you had mentally ‘planned’.

When things do not go according to ‘plan’, it’s time for a new plan.

A lesson I heard from Baba’s in India, Gurus, Spiritual Masters and leading luminaries in Personal Development circles…

Laugh at it!

Yep, that’s it… lol.

Time to laugh. “As Richard Bandler say’s, someday you are going to look back and laugh at this… why wait!”

Laugh, smile and create a new reality.

With the flat tyre scenario… Lets start with a worst case scenario… you miss the meeting/your disciplinary meeting/last warning about being late. You are late to your (final warning) disciplinary meeting about always being late. You lose your job and cant get another one, you can’t keep up on the car and house replacements, suddenly you are homeless and sleeping in a…. are you laughing yet? Or did you get sucked into the tribal feeling arising from the worst case scenario that you know isn’t really going to happen. It wouldn’t get that far and it’s ridiculous and something that you should laugh at.

Laughing and smiling just feel better. It’s fun to laugh, it’s fun to smile, it feels good and it is good for you. Smile. Laugh. Laugh at the silliness of the worst case scenario…

The laughter releases different neurochemicals, the happy ones, oxitocin, seratonin the feel good chemicals that are linked to improved quality of life and even longevity. Stressing out releases different chemicals like cortisol, this stress chemical, stresses the body, poisons it and closes the mind down.

The feel good neurotransmitter promote lucidity of thought.

The feel good neurotransmitter promote lucidity of thought.

The labourer working on a brickyard is told that these bricks ‘have to’ be moved before leaving tonight. This means the evening plans, their wedding anniversary could get ruined… Stressing the neurotoxins start flowing, Cortisol starts coursing through the system, lines and furrows appear at the forehead, shoulder muscles tense, the mind fills with a negative internal dialogue and worried thoughts, while the body is racked with bad feelings.

The clouded judgement of the mind means mistakes happen. This is bad, because the tensed muscles get pulled and causes pain. Now its going to take even longer as the injury slows progress… and by the end of driving home (because the injury hurts so much) even moving is difficult.

Groundhog day… with the alternative ending.

The labourer working on a brickyard is told that these bricks ‘have to’ be moved before leaving tonight. This means the evening plans, their wedding anniversary could get ruined… the labourer starts laughing about it, changes position and shrugs off the tired feelings, with a lucid mind a suddenly realisation happens. Half of the bricks don’t really need to be moved until Monday morning. Speaking to the manager and arranging to do half now and come in early on Monday to move the rest and the day is saved… ‘whistling while you work’ half of the bricks are moved in record time and there is plenty of time to get home and ready for the big night… (or another solution comes to the more fluid and relaxed mind)

Maybe the extra work does mean being late, but rather than turning up half an hour late all stressed, tense and annoyed, arriving 30 minutes late smiling, happy and relaxed ready for a wonderful evening is a much better place to come from.

Upon returning the ‘other half’ is furious about the late arrival on such an important day, not even phoning! (the phone ran out of battery, as of course it would in that situation), and totally incensed about this laughing attitude about it!!!

They start divorce proceedings the next day!

Or… (lets fix the ending)

Upon returning the ‘other half’ has had more time to get ready and is so happy that there was no accident or emergency. Smiling they kiss and so starts the happiest lifelong marriage ever.

The labourer takes a little longer getting ready, showering all the brick dust out of her hair and getting cleaned up after her long days work while her husband takes 5 and meditates while listening to his new relaxation Brainwave Entrainment album before starting their evening together…

What you practice you get better at.

Ask any questions and let me know what you think... Your feedback makes a difference 🙂

6 Comments

Thank you Marvin 🙂 gaining control over monkey mind is worth doing for so many reasons… this blog post and video will help with gaining control over Monkey Mind and I explain what ‘Wormtongue Ear’ is and how to deal with it 🙂

Hi there, thanks… glad you found it useful 🙂 Basically its all about personal freedom and happiness… rather than spending time in the negative emotions, gaining control over thinking and focusing on what you do want and happiness is at the root of behaviours and purchases . . .